The Top Ten Movies of 2009 (Blog)

The best movies of 2009, as determined by arbitrary email consensus between two guys with similar taste.

December 22, 2009 ShareThis Buzz up!
It is indeed that time of year when everyone and his brother writes a “best movies of the year” article. We here at Heretical Ideas have decided to take that literally, with Alex and Brian Knapp having spent exhausting hours, perhaps even days, locked in a room arguing about which movies are the best of the year. And by “hours, perhaps even days” we mean minutes. And by locked in a room, we mean over email. And by arguing, we mean they came up with individual lists and figured out how to put them together, then decided who was going to write about each one, with the tiebreaker going to the brother who actually saw the film in question.

Without further ado (although we suppose there was not much ado to start with) here are the best movies of 2009, as determined by arbitrary email consensus between two demographically similar people with largely similar taste in film.

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7. Gamer

Gamer was reviewed by me here.

Gamer is a movie that plays perfectly to the mainstream cyber-punk cinematic traditions as seen in Blade Runner, Hackers, and The Matrix. Its closest cousin is obviously The Running Man, which is likewise awesome. Gerard Butler kicks all sorts of ass in this fast-paced cyber thrill ride. The film won’t win any awards, is not that novel, but is definitely worth seeing. There are smatterings of mind/body philosophy, but nothing that is explored unnecessarily.

Gamer is one of the rare gems that ended as I expected: under the radar and without making much money. It is a shame that with a lackluster movie year, a wonderful action movie such as Gamer could go virtually unnoticed. Oh well. Well, it’s noticed now!